About Me

Gypsy: 27/F/Endless Highway

In the winter of 2008, a young California woman quits a newspaper reporter job in order to drive a big rig around America for several months. This is her blog from the road, all about learning and growing and raising hell. Won't you come along for the ride?

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Thursday, October 16, 2008

Closing ceremonies

I've lost count of how many times I've started this post and deleted it. Writing it has been much harder than actually walking away from the world of truck driving. This is the new battle, the recounting and the making sense of everything that happened.

I have not been behind the wheel of a big rig since turning in my keys to Werner, retreating back to civilian life in Portland, then going home to lick my wounds. I will probably never again get behind the wheel. But I will also never forget all these experiences, and have continued to write about them. This was the original goal, anyway - to write about life on the road. Initially I thought this would take the shape of a journalistic project, but that goal has morphed into something else. I'm not sure what yet, but I am slowly but surely writing and figuring it out.

The trucking life was not for me, but the taste of it that I did get gave me a profound respect for the men and women on the highways who are moving this country around day in and day out. You are all my heroes. I am especially grateful to those whose advice and encouragement kept me hanging on during the toughest times. (Decorina, Gigi, Aaron, Terry, Gabrielle, Jason, I'm talking to you. Thank you.)

I will keep this blog up as is, as an honest document for new drivers who want to know what it's really like to get started in this business. There was a lot of vitriol thrown around in the comment section of my last post; please refrain from such comments on this post or I will simply delete them.

If anyone wishes to contact me for any reason, please email theannakaplan(at)yahoo(dot)com. Some of the names listed above may be hearing from me soon, as I'd love to tell your stories.

12 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I loved your blog and was saddened to find the (trucking) road had come to an end for you. Thank you for sharing the insights you gained along the way, and I hope we will keep in touch. (You have not scared me off from pursuing OTR trucking as a new career, but much more awareness of some of the potential pitfalls ahead -- and thank you for that.)

Hey AnnaI have been waiting for this post! It was interesting to read your thoughts as you went through this experience. I wonder sometimes, why I chose this career, but who am I too question it. It does have its pitfalls, but it works well for me and I love it! My route taken was very different from yours, and I admit, had I been in your seat, I might not have made it this far.

If you could, please provide links in the future to anything you might have published from this experience. I am really curious to read the insight you have kept to yourself during this adventure. Good Luck in your future pursuits!!

I'm so sorry that everything turned out the way it did. Sometimes it seems like once things start turning bad it just continues to snowball. The training situation in our industry really needs to be handled in a different way (I could go on a major rant on this).

On the other hand I would like for people to realize that this isn't going to happen to everybody. There are a few good training companies out there. The biggest piece of advice I can give is RESEARCH, RESEARCH, and RESEARCH some more and go with a vocational school rather than the trucking company sponsored schools if at all possible.

Definitely keep us updated on what you do next. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog.

Sorry to see you go, but I enjoyed your blog immensely and look forward to more of your writing. I was away from driving for a couple of years and couldn't stand it - it gets to you. And it may get to you again.

That last trip was the trip from hell. Hard to say what (IF!) anyone at Werner was thinking on that mess.

I'm obviously a little late in reading the final post, but I do want to wish you all the luck in the world. Wherever the road of life takes you, at least you can now say that you would be able to do it with 18-wheels and a couple hundred gallons of diesel fuel.

Read through your blog in pretty much one sitting. The trucking life has always appealed to me in a vague, formless way--I can't deny I'm drawn to it, but I couldn't tell you why.

I enjoy the way you put things sometimes. But at the end of the day, you come through as a largely unsympathetic character. I'm sure I'd like you if I knew you personally, and that might even have given me a better impression of your experience.

But I'm left with the sense that you never really had your heart in this, that you were looking for book/made-for-TV-movie deal (middle class, well-educated girl drops out of life to become a trucker, and frankly, it reads mostly as a whine.

But I do wish you best of luck and happiness in whatever comes next...

have been waiting for this post! It was interesting to read your thoughts as you went through this experience. I wonder sometimes, why I chose this career, but who am I too question it. It does have its pitfalls, but it works well for me and I love it! My route taken was very different from yours, and I admit, had I been in your seat, I might not have made it this far.

I wonder sometimes, why I chose this career, but who am I too question it. It does have its pitfalls, but it works well for me and I love it! My route taken was very different from yours, and I admit, had I been in your seat, I might not have made it this far.